


To Be a Harrington

by pandibicth



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Bisexual Steve Harrington, Character Study, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, POV Steve Harrington, Past Steve Harrington/Nancy Wheeler, Period-Typical Homophobia, Season/Series 01, Season/Series 02, Season/Series 03, Steve Harrington-centric, hand holding, if you count the end as comfort im not sure, its impressive the amont of people holding hands in this, read it i promise its good, wlw/mlm solidarity babey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-20
Updated: 2019-08-20
Packaged: 2020-09-19 01:27:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,192
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20322826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pandibicth/pseuds/pandibicth
Summary: The problem with pretenting you're not hurt is that you can't pretend forever.Steve Harrington isn't that smart but maybe he can finally find who he is somewhere along the way.





	To Be a Harrington

**Author's Note:**

> i wrotr this in a frenzy at 2am this morning because inspiration struck me idk how it is dont be too hard on me i just really like steve and jonathan also steve is BI that fucking i like more scene ? shut the fuck up  
CW: f slur and q slur stay safe peoples  
update 03/27: took out the robinancy tag bc i didnt want to be misleading about the content of this fic

Growing up around dumb assholes kids leaves traces that Steve only discovers after a long time and a lot of soul-searching, like cleaning his room and finding a glass of milk that turned, except that the glass of milk has influenced a good portion of how you behave now and you don't know how you're going to manage throwing it away in your kitchen sink. 

A game that was popular when he was a kid was to squeeze someone's hand and move around expertly the person's knuckles. Only some kids were really able to do it well, and people that experienced it immediatly tore their hand away, whining about how weird it felt and shaking their hand to make the pain disappear. When Tommy H asked Steve to give him his hand, he didn't react and said that he felt nothing. Tommy's smile had faltered and he squeezed his hand harder. Steve bit his lip and pretended that he didn't want to yell in pain, aware of all the eyes that were suddenly watching him. Tommy gave up, and when the kids around started saying that Steve didn't feel pain, his eyes shone with jealousy. Steve secretly rubbed his knuckles and grinned at them.

The problem with pretending that you don't feel pain, is that people don't realize they're hurting you, and you can't pretend forever.

***

When Jonathan Byers punches him in that alley, Steve almost laughs. It's not that it doesn't hurt, he feels like all his teeth are going to fall off, but laughing just became his immediate response to pain. He found that laughing was better than crying. 

Jonathan Byers punches him, again and again and again and again and Steve thinks about how he held his hand, seven years old and teeth missing from his shy smile and said "My dad's an asshole too". He hears Nancy's screams, muted and so, so far away when the same kid hits him in the jaw, fury in the curve of his mouth and something like pain in the line of his eyes.

He feels a sharp rock in the back of his head and Jonathan Byers smells like clean laundry and blood. 

He doesn't laugh this time.

***

His dad never hit him. He just wasn't that kind of man. They were the _ Harringtons _ , and Harringtons don't hit their kid or cheat on their wife. Harringtons go on business trips and silently tell their kid with the disapproving looks on their faces that if they hold boy's hands they won't be Harringtons anymore.__

_ _One day, Steve is eight, and he tells his mom that Rachel Hayes has pretty eyes, blue like the sky in summer, but that he likes how bouncy Gavin Porter's curls look, and that he thinks it would be fun to twirl his fingers around them, when she asks if he likes anyone._ _

_ _Steve is eight, and he doesn't get most things, but he understands that he must have said something really, really bad because her eyes harden and she tells him to keep that to himself. Steve's tests in school have started to get hard, and he thinks maybe he's not that smart, but he can't understand what he did that made his mom mad, and even if he's big now, almost a grown up, his eyes water a little._ _

_ _His mom hugs him, and her hair is scratchy and her perfume makes him want to sneeze, but she's solid and rubbing circles in his back, saying that she's sorry, and that he'll get over it, and to never tell his father._ _

_ _He doesn't understand until the kids at school call Gavin a fag, because he held Steve's hand at recess, and his hand was warm, Steve's skin strikingly pale against his. Steve is not sure of the meaning but it must be really bad, because Gavin didn't want to talk to him anymore. Steve tells the others that he doesn't care, because he was a fag anyway, and it must be the right thing to say because they laugh, and Steve ignores how cold his hands feel._ _

_ _***_ _

_ _Billy Hargrove shoves him in gym class and calls him pretty in the showers and Steve feels like it's the first day of school and he didn't do the summer reading. He thinks that maybe Billy was one of these kids that pulled on the hair of the girls that they liked in primary school, but then he tries to hit one the kids that he somehow found himself attached to, and he decides that Billy Hargrove's just a fucking asshole, and leaves it at that. _ _

_ _Billy punches him, of course, and Steve wonders if he's just going to get routinely beat up every year, but then Billy smashes a plate on his head and everything goes dark._ _

_ _***_ _

_ _His feet are dangling off the edge of the cold consultation table, and Steve feels very young and small. The doctor is examining his pupils and asking him what his middle name is, and Jonathan Byers is holding his hand, and everything is crazy and he's nine again except he's seventeen and Nancy doesn't love him anymore and his parents couldn't make time to stay with him at the hospital, and Jonathan Byers is holding his hand because his middle name is Richard and the president is Reagan and the kids had to go home because it was late, and he almost died today, but it doesn't matter because Jonathan tells him that he'll be alright because he doesn't have a concussion and his hand is firm and Steve thinks that maybe he's going to cry a little._ _

_ _***_ _

_ _His dad still doesn't hit him, but it's clear when he tells him to get a job at the mall since he couldn't get to college, that he thinks Steve his a disappointment; "not a Harrington" his stern look screams at him, and Steve thinks that he might just tell him everything now, spill his guts about how he hasn't been doing well in school because nothing matters now that there are monsters trying to kill him, that sometimes he can't breathe and he can't relax and he can't move and he can't sleep and that weed helps with that restless fear that's always in the back of his head. He wants to tell him that Nancy Wheeler doesn't love him anymore, and that he's terrified that maybe she never did, because he loved her so much, desperately, and now he lost her. He wants to yell at him that ten years later, he still wants to kiss Jonathan Byers, he wants to tell him that he's a fucking queer, just to see the look on his face, to see him lose his composure. He thinks about how good it would feel._ _

_ _But Harringtons don't yell. Harringtons don't make scenes. Harringtons don't get thrown out of their houses by their father. So Steve tells him that he'll start looking tomorrow, and kisses his mother goodnight, and he screams into his pillow and he thinks about how pathetic wanting to be around a bunch of thirteen year olds to feel better is. _ _

_ _***_ _

_ _Robin Buckley is beautiful, and she's not at all like Nancy Wheeler. She calls him dingus, and doofus, and dumbass, but he knows that she doesn't really think he's an idiot. It feels better than how Nancy tried to sugarcoat it, told him that his essays just needed more work, and he knows that's unfair to her, but he doesn't care. _ _

_ _He likes Robin because he feels like he's finally making a friend on his own, and he can talk with someone that doesn't know the world collapses on him every year, and he's glad she doesn't know about monsters. _ _

_ _Until she does._ _

_ _***_ _

_ _That Russian guy is beating him up and it's really starting to get old. Maybe he has to surrender and accept that a shiner and the fear of a concussion is what he gets for trying to save the world, because yeah, two's a coincidence but three's a pattern._ _

_ _He hits him, and Steve should've gotten used to it now, and he still doesn't want to show he's in pain, even if his face is covered in blood, because pain is weakness, and if he's weak, he's losing. He's laughing at them, he's laughing with them, they're laughing at him, and the blood coming from his nose tastes like salt._ _

_ _***_ _

_ _The toilet floor smells like piss and Robin's eyes are filled with tears. She looks at him and it's like he can see all the way to her soul, and he doesn't understand why she trusts him with her secret, and Steve's tests have become harder and harder since he was eight, and everyone tells him that he's not that smart, but he understands how important what he'll say is, and he admires her so much, because he's a coward and she told him she likes girls, and it feels so important to make that look disappear from her face, like nothing else in the whole world matters because she's going to cry and she showed him how her heart is held together and if he blows on it it will fall apart._ _

_ _He makes fun of Tammy Thompson because she kissed him, drunk and wide-eyed, telling him how he's so cool and funny, he laughs at her because he kissed her back and told her she was pretty, and now it feels like betrayal, but Robin laughs, and he feels that something important happened, but the drug fogging up his brain makes him focus on how her eyes crinkle, just for the night, before he can be heartbroken tomorrow._ _

_ _***_ _

_ _"Want me to go in with you, man?", he asks Jonathan because Nancy is with her brother behind one of those billions of identical white doors, and Joyce is with Will behind an other one, and they only allow two people in together, but Jonathan's eyes are wide like he doesn't understand, and he nods very subtly, like he can't really believe this is happening._ _

_ _Two of his ribs are broken, and his back is severely bruised, but he's not concussed and there's no damage to his spinal cord. The doctor tells Jonathan he's lucky, but Steve thinks that if he were lucky, they wouldn't be in this horrible sterile room with walls flavor vomit. Jonathan seems to agree because he's quiet, even more than usual, and his head is held down like he wants to hide his face, so Steve takes his hand, and his palm is sweaty and Jonathan still kind of smells like fireworks and burning flesh and his own face throbs because the painkiller side-effect of the drug is fading, but Jonathan squeezes his hand, a thank you, and everything is a little bit better for a little while._ _

_ _***_ _

_ _Robin shoves him again, so Steve hits her foot, but she doesn't give up on her question. They're sprawled on the carpet of his living room, and it feels like nothing else besides them exists in the whole world. He finds he often feels that way with Robin "Tell me a secret Harrington, it's only fair!" She just told him that she thinks Nancy is kind of hot, her cheeks pink with embarrassment, and Steve just thinks about her eyes in that bathroom stall. He pushes himself up on his elbows. _ _

_ _"So you know how i like girls?" She must feel the shift in his tone, because she looks at him all serious and just nods._ _

_ _"I think I might like boys too." After a beat, she grabs his hand and squeezes it like it's the most important thing she ever got to hold. "Thank you for telling me," she says, and it's so serious that Steve feels hairs in the back of his neck standing up. He thinks he's going to cry but he can't, he _ can't _ . Harringtons don't cry. Harringtons don't show weakness. She must feel the storm too because she smiles suddenly and kicks him again.____

_ __ _

_ _ _ _"I have to make fun in your taste in boys now, you know ?"_ _ _ _

_ __ _

_ _ _ _"You don't !"_ _ _ _

_ __ _

_ _ _ _"You have to tell me who you liked !"_ _ _ _

_ __ _

_ _ _ _Steve sighs. It feels like defeat and a bit like it doesn't matter. "I think I liked Jonathan Byers." and Robin starts laughing and telling him how he's a creep and he's the guy that picked up worms in middle school, and Steve laughs with her, but he thinks about how his hand still fit in his after all these years, about his rainbow bandaids and the fond look in his eyes, and he feels like maybe it's okay to think that, and he was right, it does feel good, and it's like a weight that he forgot was there until it disappeared is lifted from his shoulders and he's so grateful that he hugs Robin, tight and like a declaration of love, because he loves her, and it feels like she loves him too, and he thinks maybe he can cry and it'll be okay, because they'll cry together and if he can't be a Harrington, he'll figure out how to be himself._ _ _ _

_ __ _

**Author's Note:**

> ps i dont think steves a dumbass i actually think hes really smart just not book smart this is steve pov so thats how i think he thinks oh himself yknow anyway i hope you liked it if you did consider leaving a kudo and/or a comment  
im on twitter @pandibicth and on tumblr @augusteelpd  
have a nice day!


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